Softbank’s Outspoken CEO, Masayoshi Son

Softbank Corp. CEO Masayoshi Son is known as a maverick unafraid to speak his mind. On a conference call today discussing his company’s takeover of Sprint, U.S. analysts and investors got a taste of that candor, and a few of his remarks left some of the listeners scratching their heads.

To sell the deal, Sprint and Mr. Son touted Softbank’s “global leadership” in LTE network development and deployment. On a slide in a presentation citing Cisco data from 2011, Softbank said Japan’s wireless networks were almost twice as fast as the U.S.

“Right now, when every time I come to the States, I say ‘Wow!,’ this is so slow, what is this? It’s unbearable,” said Mr. Son. “I cannot stand the slowness of the speed, so U.S. citizens don’t have the experience of high speed.”